“But do we have to carry them along with us like that?” asked Horace as he held up the rather bulky object he had made of his cotton slip.
“Certainly not,” he was informed; “you empty it before breaking camp, and in the evening fill it again. Plenty of hemlock or spruce handy, whenever you choose to stretch out your hand and pluck it.”
“You must show me about all these things,” Billy Button remarked. “To tell the truth I don’t know the difference between balsam, fir, spruce, hemlock, larch and some other trees I’ve heard you talking about.”
“I’ll begin to-morrow, and you’ll find it simple enough,” Tom promised him.
After all the night really passed without any disturbance. Tom and Rob managed to wake up a number of times, and getting quietly out of their snug nests, they renewed the fire, thus keeping it going all through the night.
Had any one been watching closely they probably would have seen a head bob up occasionally, the owner take a cautious look around, and then drop back again as though convinced that all was well, with no danger of ferocious wild beasts raiding the camp.
These were the tenderfeet of the troop. They of course could not sleep save in snatches, and the strangeness of their surroundings caused them to feel more or less nervous. All they heard, however, was the barking of Farmer Brush’s watch dogs or some little woods animal complaining because these two-legged intruders had disturbed the peace of their homeland.
With the coming of dawn there was a stir in camp. Then one by one the scouts crawled out from their blankets, all but two greenhorns.
“Let them sleep a while longer,” said Mr. Witherspoon. “I fancy neither of them passed a very comfortable night.”
And at this the other boys moderated their voices as they proceeded to get an early breakfast ready, though in no hurry to leave that pleasant Camp Content.